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Wednesday, 2 February 2011

The Balance Sheet of Marriage and Parenthood

I think I now understand why some divorces are so ugly. During our marriage I didn't do things for my husband thinking about what I would get in return, however, now that our marriage is over I keep thinking that he owes me, and since I won't get the emotional support now, and since he isn't going to show up and clean my home, I have been focusing on money. The focus is there because I am broke right now, if he had left when I was back at work instead of on mat leave, it wouldn't bother me so much.

When things were good, I didn't think about who was doing more or less, contributing more or less. When things were stressful for me, (stress caused by external or internal forces) I found myself weighing our contributions against each other. When things were good, it didn't matter if I was doing more of one thing because I was getting more of other stuff. When things were good, I was getting tons of emotional support and love, so nothing else mattered.

Now that our marriage is over I am looking at back at everything and reassessing. I look back and think "Oh my god, why did I do that, of course he would have hated me for that", but at the time I was just reacting to a situation. I look back and wonder if I made the right decisions for me. If I had known that he was going to leave me, would I have done what I did? I look back and wonder how I ended up here. At some point in our marriage I lost myself, it wasn't my husband's fault. For a long time I didn't need or want anyone else, he was enough. Then I became very isolated during my mat leaves and ended up relying on him more.

So the one thing that I feel like he really owes me is time. Time to get back out there, time to reconnect with my friends, time to find and be me. A big part of me are my boys, but I need to have an adult me too.